Gateway MX7515 battery issues

OK I got this laptop a few months back and it came to me as "dead" but I figured I would tinker with it since I mess with pcs often. I found it would not boot into windows but did power up so I did the F11 option upon boot and wallah it restored windows and all was working to my disbelief. This used to be my sis's and her husbands pc but Best Buy techs certified it "dead" so they got a new one and gave this to me.

It had majot heat issues I soon found out and came to me with the bottom center of the case slightly melted so I did my investigation inside first and saw no mb damage or any other damage other than a disfigured case. Anyways it ran fine after the restore and using to run a second game account I noticed extreme heat being vented and random shutdowns from this. I pulled it apart again and blew out the heatsink fans and wallah it ran at normal temps and was very stable after that.

OK the battery, when I first did the initial restore and found pc to be fine and not "dead" it had some battery life left and was running for about 15 mins off battery power but I normally would leave it plugged in. This battery has never taken a charge since and I am determined to get it to take a charge since it showed it had a marginal charge when I got it. I found the dc jack to have a broken connection so I ordered a new one off Ebay and I don;t recommend ordering these from any source because they do not have the correct jack. The ones being sold for this machine are 3 legged ones when the one in it has 6 legs and the center pin is wrong diameter. My purchase was refunded so no loss there. I did the solder myself and jack is fixed.

It used to show the battery charging before solder repair but wasn't actually charging the battery, after the solder repair it shows the battery as charging but never leaves 0% so something was changed after solder repair. The dc adapter is new and both old one and new one give same results. The battery indicator after many hours of charging starts blinking instead of solid red, this according to manual indicates "low battery". I'm guessing the battery power it ran off of was maybe the last life it had but I feel it should at least charge what little bit it has left but it won't. I don't feel shelling out $100+ for another battery would be justified for as much and how I use it.

I wonder if the excessive heat from the initial crash fried something that is messing up it's ability to charge the battery. I have looked and see no further damage anywhere in the battery connectors or paths to it. It certainly recongnizes the battery and I use a monitor program that sees the battery and shows intermittent charging but also shows it will take 1387 hours to charge at the 14mwh rate it is charging at. This charge rate goes in and out though so there is an issue I cannot find.

Any techs have any ideas pleas share them with me. I can have the entire laptop apart in 10 mins so I am very familiar with the insides now so nothing is to advanced for me to do to it now. I am hesitant to buy a battery for $100 also when that might not be the problem, I have enough paper weights already!! The heat damage area on the case was from the bottom center area of the motherboard just above where the hard drive connects but on the flip side where there is a heatsink looking device and it seems the damage came from where they used to leave it or run it sitting directly on a sofa so this damage I think it is just case damage and nothing else is effected other than it crashed the operating system when it overheated. Any ideas are welcome and sorry for long post.